James Taylor

Sweet Baby Wayne

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‘I may call him The Dude, but it’s not Jeff Bridges he gets mistaken for.’

I was going to write about our most recent trip to Brazil. This last trip was our fifth time there, and some people I know (well, Oldest Younger Brother Scott, actually) were starting to call us the Brazil Nuts.

But heck. Maybe it’s because we just got back and I’m sort of Braziled out. Or maybe it’s because my gal pal Debi (Hi, Debi!) said Dude Man’s picture on Facebook (the one at the top of this post) reminded her of James Taylor. Whatever the reason, I’d rather write about The Dude.

(Hey! Maybe it’s because our — gasp — 40th wedding anniversary is coming up this weekend. Yeah, let’s settle on that.)

Brazil has been there for a long time. It’ll keep. For a week or so, anyway

Other people besides Debi have noticed Dude Man’s remarkable resemblance to James T., Carly Simon, his once-wife, among them. She once passed him on a New York City sidewalk and did a romcom-worthy double-take.

In fact, I’ve written about this uncanny twinship before. If you like, you can skip over to “I’ve Seen Fire and I’ve Seen Birthdays” for some cool comparison photos.

Which twin has the Toni? (er, shiny head)

They even looked alike in more, ahem, tender years. With intact heads of hair:

As I’ve also recounted before, in “Hangin’ with Gouda, Jook and The Dude,” “Dude” was a nickname bestowed upon Wayne when he was at Dartmouth. He unwisely wore a tie to the freshman mixer, and The Dude was born.

Hey. I just realized I’m writing about not just one, but two things I’ve written about before. Gosh. Maybe it’s time to quit this blogging thing and run for the Senate or something. Everybody else is.

I know I haven’t written about where the heck the word “dude” comes from. That’s because I just found out. Oldest Younger Brother Scott called my attention to a feature that the NY Times runs about words and their origins. While we were in Brazil, they dug into the history of “dude.” You can read the whole thing by clicking here.

Basically, the piece says that “’dude’ probably came from ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and the British slang ‘fopdoodle,’ meaning a foolish dandy.” There’s also some stuff in there about dudes being “young, slender, brainless and imitating what they thought was high British culture.” After a while, dudes were associated with dude ranches and suchlike. But it wasn’t until Jeff Bridges came along in The Big Lebowski that the word took on its present-day totally dudified dudeness.

I suppose it would be more fitting if the celebrity My Dude looked like was Jeff’s Dude instead of James’ Sweet Baby. But heck. I like him just the way he is. And there’s one person he looks like more than anybody:

Happy Anniversary, Dude Man! (Ours, not hers.)

New York City. March 2024

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen Wayne

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‘The Dude by any other name would be just as sweet.’

Hmmm. Not sure if I would call The Dude “sweet”, especially after he’s come back from one of his marathon bike rides. But he is an awfully nice guy, even super-sweaty.

Good thing this isn’t Smellavision. The Dude indulges in a refreshing chunk of bread and Diet Dr. P after a zillion-mile bike ride

Now, if you’d told me when I was a mere slip of a girl that I would some day marry a guy named Wayne, I’m not sure how I would have reacted. For one thing, I didn’t know any guys named Wayne. There were certainly no Waynes who went to school with me in Carlyle, Illinois. There were plenty of Marks and Dans and Steves and Garys and even a Barry and a Stanley. But the only Wayne I’d heard of at the time was John Wayne. And he was old. Plus, Wayne was his last name. And not even his real last name. Good ole Duke was born Marion Morrison.

I have a pillow named Wayne, thanks to my Favorite Only Younger Sister. Thanks, Laura!

To be honest, I always thought Wayne was sort of a nerdy name. You know, the name of a guy whose pants are too short. Or who collects plastic dinosaurs and keeps them in his locker. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Young Wayne (my Wayne), attired in appropriately-short trousers. (Also displaying seriously pilled slipper-socks — remember slipper-socks?)

Oh, and of course there are all the serial killers with Wayne as a middle name. John Wayne Gacy is perhaps the most famous.

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“You looked so nice I almost didn’t recognize you.”

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‘Appearances can be deceiving. Or something like that.’

So. Today is February 14. And yes, I did get something red and shiny for Valentine’s Day: my nose. Maybe by next week — when it’s (fingers crossed) only a miserable memory — I’ll find this cold amusing enough to write about. We’ll (sniff) see. In the meantime, I’m going with what I originally planned.

Which is a riff on Being Compared to Someone Else.

You know. Like when someone comes up to you at a family reunion and says something along the lines of “You remind me so much of your Aunt Net”. (A real Aunt of Mine whose name was Annette. She wore a hairnet, which is how she got that nickname. Or so we kids thought.) Continue reading

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen birthdays

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‘But I’ve never seen James Taylor and The Dude in the same room at the same time’

If you run into James Taylor today, you might want to wish him “Happy Birthday”. Because, if you happen to be on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, it’s probably The Dude that you’ve run into, and it is indeed his birthday today.

James Taylor’s was in March, and he is a few years older. But, if The Dude’s heard it once he’s heard it a thousand times: “Hey! Did you know you look just like James Taylor?!?” Who knows? Maybe people are constantly stopping JT with: “Hey! Did you know you look just like this guy called The Dude who turns up in Lutheranliar’s blog?!?”

Even James’s ex, Carly, did a double-take when she passed His Dudeness on the street one day. (I heard this straight from The Dude’s mouth. And he would never ever tell a lie, not even a Lutheran one.) And I once went to a Yo Yo Ma concert here in New York (the real Yo Yo Ma, not my invented syndrome), where guess who was a surprise guest performer? Yup. Someone who looked just like my personal husband, dressed in a very expensive-looking tux over a black tee shirt. After that, I got The Dude a black tee shirt. That’s one great look on a tall baldish guy, tux or no tux.

Enough kvelling. Let’s truck out some photographic evidence, and let you be the judge. Don’t these two look rather incredibly similar, diabolical eyebrows and all?

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